


The Price for a Broken Family to be Whole again

by kebwins



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bat Brothers, Bat Family, Forgotten Tim Drake, Gen, Hurt Tim Drake, Protective Jason Todd, Protective bat family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-06 09:33:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20289277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kebwins/pseuds/kebwins
Summary: When Jason is finally accepted back into the family he had been dead to long before he can't help but try and shake the feeling that someone else was supposed to be there besides them. Perhaps that feeling was just him and the unknown red, chard feather that appeared in his hand the day he got back or something else.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> An idea that came to my head after staying up reading Batfam ffs and Tim headcanons  
Please R&R & Enjoy!

He watched from afar as Jason Todd was embarrassed in the loving and strong arms of Dick and Bruce, both of who were just happy to have the son and brother they lost back. Damian had been trapped in the middle of it all and he couldn’t help but chuckle as the little demon tried to escape it only to fail miserably. He watched as Barbara, Cass, Steph, Kate, Duke and even Alfred quickly moved to join the hug with all of them. He heard Jason protest the crowd and them becoming saps just because he was no longer messed up or dead. He listened as Dick hit Jason and told him to just let it happen because they earned the right to be sappy with him before they all froze in their laughter

“Time to go” A voice coming from his right spoke to him as a hand was placed gently on top of his back “You’ve completed your request”

“I know” He responded mournfully “They won’t remember right? That I was ever here?”

“I won’t lie that they may feel that something is missing but unless they want to they will not remember you”

“Good. I don’t want my family to fall apart again.”

“They aren’t your family. Your family sold you to us remember?”

“The biological ones yes”

“They are still your family. You’re lucky we were kind enough to let you bring joy back to this family before taking you”

“I know”

“Come on. We have a lot of work to get done”

He weakly nodded as he gathered up his suits from the bat cave, taken advantage of his family frozen in bliss. He savored the looks on their faces one last time and took his time so say his final goodbye to each and everyone of them. He hugged Alfred as tightly as he good as he slipped a new recipe inside of his butler’s. He gifted Cass a travel size Dictionary of every and all Languages she may be curious about. He gave Damian a book on all his animals and Steph the key to his apartment should she ever need it. To Barbara he gave her a new security system for Oracle and Kate a collection of new and improved equipment just for her usage. For Dick he gave him a collection of happy photos of their family he had secretly taken, making sure to leave out all the ones that included him, just so whenever his hopeful big brother was ever down he could find joy in his family. Bruce and Jason were the hardest to find a farewell for, for obvious reasons. Bruce because, well he was Bruce, and Jason because he had never really known he existed until he came back to life and had spent most of the first few years of his new life trying to kill him. He sighed when he finally got to them and hugged each of them tightly. To Jason he gave him a picture of the moment the Anti-hero first appeared as Robin all those years ago, a picture that He had secretly taken of him flying through the air with a small note on the back of it that he knew would only be revealed when they noticed something missing and a red feather that belonged to no such birds on earth. To Bruce he placed a thumb drive in his father’s pocket, holding all the unsolved cases that Gotham had to offer now solved in neat little files just for him to unlock when he gets close enough to the truth. 

* * *

With one final look at the joy on their faces he finally let out a content sigh and disappeared into the shadows for good. With him the door that once lead to his room blended in with the walls and all the secrets he’s kept now were gone too. Time started again and confusion filled the faces of the team as they looked curiously at the objects now in their hands, only later shrugging and putting them away as stories formed in their minds on how they got there. The family then filed out of the cave slowly to continue their celebration at breakfast. Only Jason stopped he reached the top of the stairs and looked back at the now empty cave as if he was trying to find something that was no longer there. 

“You coming Jace?” Dick asked from the side as he turned his head quickly to see his family their waiting for him.

“Huh? Oh... yeah… yeah I am” He said as he pushes the mysterious feeling down once more before finally closing the secret entrance and following them all out.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ages:  
Alfred: 75  
Bruce: 46  
Kate: 37  
Dick: 23  
Barbara: 22  
Jason: 20  
Cassandra: 17  
Tim: 15  
Steph: 15  
Damian: 10  
Please R&R & enjoy!

A year has passed since Jason was finally revealed that he was in fact their Jason to his family. A year since they welcomed him back with open arms and accepted all his apologizes for trying to kill them when he was first revived. A year since he took back his room at the manor, with some minor changes to it. A year since he started having Alfred’s cooking again. A year since Bruce gave in to his way, with much reluctance, and accepted that he could not change him. A year since they reached an agreement on who takes what side of Gotham and that even though Jason was allowed to use guns he wasn’t allowed to kill. A year since that feeling of something he could not name embedded itself in his chest and refused to let him go, no matter how hard he tried to shake it or forget about it. 

Slowly he sat up on his bed and stared at the partially burnt red feather that laid on the end table next to him. He reached out for it and twirled it in his hands like he did every morning since he came back to his home and found the red and black feather in his hands. He fiddled with it curiously before turning to the framed picture on his beside that had come with it. He let out a sigh as he put the feather down next to the picture just as it had been when he woke up before making his way down to breakfast, or lunch as most normal people would call it, where his family was waiting for him, he was always the last one up after a night of fighting crime. Dick and Damian switched for first place and were usually up in time for a quick breakfast before rushing to school or work and Bruce only ever waking when Alfred finally got him up, which always happens to be before Jason got up.

He slowly walked down with this heavy weight on his shoulders and pulled up his own seat beside Dick and waited for the food to be served. He noted how the demon brat copied their father, who was reading a newspaper at the head of the table, with the comics section of the same issue across from him and the empty chair next to Damian that no matter how many guests they held was never filled as if some sort of force was blocking it from being sat upon.

“Do you guys ever feel like something is missing?” Jason finds himself asking as he picks at the food they had been served. He listened as whatever Dick had been talking to air about quickly fell flat and how the pages of the newspapers were quickly folded so that attention was only on him and him alone.

“Why do you ask?” Bruce asked from the head of the table.

“I don’t know… I just feel like something is not here. That’s supposed to be here and I don’t know what or who it is.” Jason said with a frustrated groan “God you probably all think I’m going crazy again”

“Jason-” Dick said as the younger stood up quickly.

“Forget I said anything I’m going to go… I don’t know… Talk to Roy probably. I’ll be back before patrolling starts.”

With that he accepted Alfred’s takeout container and quickly exited the manor just so he could breathe again while ignoring Dick calling out to him to wait as he climbs onto his bike and heads to one of the hides he kept from his time before he was accepted again. He growled at his own idiocy for bringing up his feelings at lunch when it was obvious from the start that no one else had felt the same way as him. Or maybe he should have just brought it up to Alfred later in the day as he seemed to have noticed something, but that could have just been his own paranoia that the pit had gifted to him.

He yelled loudly in his mind as he sped down the road to his safe place as recklessly yet carefully as he could. He had food to keep safe after all there was no way in hell he was going to destroy Alfred’s cooking just because he was frustrated. Only a fool would ever do that. 

Soon enough he was pulling up to the rundown shack at the edge of the city. The hum of his bike slowly dying down as he parked it just outside the doors and marched into the safehouse that used to be his home, not surprised in the slightest when he found the person he had been looking to talk to crashed on the couch and looking like a mess.

“Get up” Jason said gruffly as he kicked the edge of the couch, knowing full well it would startle the other.

“GAH!” Roy scream “What the hell Jay? Can’t you let a man sleep”

“Oh shut it it’s well past your usual wake up time anyways” Jason said with an eyeroll “Move over I have stuff to talk about and you are going to listen ‘cause you are probably the only one who won’t think I’m insane or look at me with a pitiful face.”

“Oh sounds serious. Better start talking… Brought food?”

“Yeah yeah. Alf’s still making extras since I came back so here you go” he handed one of the containers he brought to Roy as he pushed his legs out of the way so he could sit down on the couch instead of continue to stand.

“Ooo Alfred’s cookin’…. This must be really serious then if you’re sharing the goods”

“Shut it you. And yes it is serious so be quiet and eat while I try and figure it out”

“Listen ok… I… Ever since I was accepted back, not just them getting over the fact that I'm alive and such, but them accepting that I… I won’t change my ways even if they don’t like it. “ Jason trailed off slowly as he scratched the back of his head before shaking it “I just can’t shake that there is something… someone there who is supposed to be there but isn’t. And I brought it up to them today to see if they might have felt the same thing but they just looked at me with blank unreadable bat expressions. Hell… everything seems to be going wrong.”

“To be fair” Roy interrupted “All you bats have perfectly perfected pokerfaces and you have been gone for a while so you might not have been able to recognize something”

“Only B and Bastard have a good poker face. Dick’s is shit and you and I both know it.”

“True true…. Anyways continue.”

“Well… I find myself always waiting for someone to follow me out of the cave if I am the last one to exit. I find myself on a random comm line sometimes too… A line that according to Oracle has never been used before” Jason muttered “And there’s this name that’s just on the type of my tongue that I can’t in point ever knowing…. And don’t even get me started on this red and black chard feather I found … I… It’s like something in my mind has been… replaced… Replaced…. Roy! That’s it! The Replacement!”

“The what now?” Roy questions

* * *

The scene froze just as Jason spoke and Roy listened. It pans out into a pure white room where the only color was a boy, no older than fifteen, strapped into a table with tubs of liquid flowing into the veins of either arm.

“Well well… Looks like one of them cares for you more than we anticipated little bird” A figure said as a prick of pain entered Tim’s nerves “And in just over a year too… Then again those touched by the pit are always trickier to manipulate Either way… I guess we should speed up a bit then… You are near perfect after all”

He stayed silently as his veins were pumped with something he did not know. His expression blank and his eyes trained towards the screen in hopes that the distraction will start once again as the pain grew more and more impossible to ignore. He let out a scream once it grew too much for him to ignore and let the darkness consume his vision just as the pain starts to subside. 

“Hush now dear. It’s time for bed” A soothing voice told him as he finally closed his eyes and blocked out all the noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't for get to leave a comment about your thoughts!


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Top floor of WM: https://www.deviantart.com/geckobot/art/Wayne-Manor-Upper-Floor-Plan-517096981  
ground floor of WM: https://www.deviantart.com/geckobot/art/Wayne-Manor-Main-Floor-Plan-517075643
> 
> Please enjoy!

Jason sighed once more as another lead turned up dead. It’s been months since he told Roy and started to remember the Replacement but other than that no real name or face came to his mind. He groaned in frustration as everyone he asked outside of the batfamily and Roy, seemed to just shrug him off and gave him no indication they knew who he was talking about. Dick and Bruce have both tried to bring it up those rare times he was home and not crossing the world to find answers but Jason never mentioned the Replacement to them, he was sure that whoever this person was those two wouldn’t have remembered him with such hate and anger like he did. He was no closer to getting to the bottom of this feeling than he was when he first started to talk about it. 

“Hood!” a voice that was so evidently Dick’s sounded throughout his helmet from the comms he had thought he turned off. Jason swore loudly as he jumped up from his spot on the roof he had claimed just as Dick’s cackling took to his ear. “Awe did I scare you Little wing? Sorry”

“Shut it” Jason quickly growled out as heat filled his face “What the hell do you want. I thought I turned off all of my comms?”

“Yeah… You did. All but one actually” his brother responded “Listen that… I’m actually here to talk to you about that. I found this communicator on your old grave. Don’t know what it was doing there. Nor do I know who it belongs to. I… I may have heard you talking in it a few times before… I’ve been trying to figure it out for a while, honestly. The prints don’t match anyone in the world and when I gave Oracle the code all she could pull up was articles from before Damian came into our life… Back when you were still… not alive”

“You could just say dead you know….”

“Yeah yea I know. Anyways. I heard you talking into the communicator a few days ago. Asking questions while you thought know one was listening… Are you any closer to finding him?”

“No not at all. I’m in Songkhla right now and i’ve got nothing. No blue eye kid with black hair that fits Bat’s usual description for adoptive sons or the description I can barely recall right now. Cassandra has been helping me since I got out of Hong Kong but other than stopping a few crooks we haven’t turned up any leads.”

“How do you know that whoever this person is has blue eyes-... Yeah you’re right. All male robins have had a variation of blue eyes and black hair. Even you though you dyed yours. Are you going to let it become red again?”

“I’d look too much like Roy if I did that. And besides it’s more of a brown now than anything else. I think as I age I lost the red.” Jason groaned deeply as he realised his brother had successfully got him off topic and

“Well that’s a shame… Or perhaps not… You’ve always been a rebel. Wally and my ex’s have been teasing me about falling for badass redheads. I wouldn’t do that to you though. You’ll always be my little brother”

“I wouldn’t hope for anything more Nightwing. Just keep your type to yourself in the future please. I don’t need that image in my head”

“To be fair they were all extremely smart badass redheads with green eyes… You don’t have green eyes in most lights so I think you’re good-”

“LET’S TALK ABOUT THE REPLACEMENT PLEASE!” Jason found himself practically screaming into his helmet as he brings his hands up to it to facepalm. 

“Oh right yeah sorry little wing”

“Shut up”

“Anyways… Why do you call whoever they are replacement?”

“Because that’s how I remembered him. Or whatever. I know there was a robin after me and before Demon Robin and Spoiler. I just can’t re-"

Jason froze as he remembered something back from when he was Robin. A kid with a camera standing in the shadows of their fights only to disappear just as the fight ended. He had always thought that Bruce knew about him so he had never brought it up but now that he was older and back to life he was wondering if maybe their father figure hadn't noticed.

"Hey you there?" Dick's voice cut through his thoughts once again. 

"Hey Nightwing… Is that kid still following Bats’ around?”

“What kid?”

“There was a kid with a camera… About six or so.. I don’t know honestly… I just… I just remembered him following us around and taking pictures and shit…. Please don’t tell me he was caught or something after I was gone”

“I don’t remember any kid following us.”

“Ugh” Jason groaned “Great. Another lost lead where I am the only one who remembers ANYTHING”

“Now Jace, dropping code names by the way line’s been secured, that’s not true. I believe you.”

“You’re just saying that out of pity”

“No I’m not. Listen. I believe you. I believed you that day you told us too. There are times I would find myself walking to where my old room was. You know the one right next to yours? Not the spare one in between you and Damian but the one in between you and Bruce”

“There is no room next to mine. Not in the way you’re talking about it anyways”

“There used to be. I know it ‘cause I lived their until Bruce and I had our faulout and he stopped me from being Robin. Anyways. Just listen ok? I remember walking to where it was and everything but something pushed me away from it. Away from where I remember the door. Maybe it’s because I was already tired or sleep deprived or something and then when I looked towards it that next morning my vision got hazy and I could have sworn I saw a door. Just for a moment... Anyways. Whatever is going on… Whatever we have forgotten. I don’t think this is something that was done on a human level. I contacted Zatana and snuck her into the house while B and Damion were out on patrol. Anyways. She said that something was definitely wrong with it. Like something messed with everything. Something powerful. I brought Wally there too. To see if he could help because he survived being forgotten and stuff. Anyways he didn’t find anything.. But he did phase through that wall. The wall where the door to my childhood room was supposed to be. He did find something. And well I think you should come back here-”

“I’ll be there in a day” Jason interrupted “I’m assuming you already found a ticket”

“Yeah. Babs is sending you the information to your phone now. It leaves in an hour.”

He was already hopping onto his rented bike when his phone buzzed with the information. He revved the engine a little bit as the maps loaded quickly on the GPS. 

“Alright. See you when I am home. “ he said before taking off the Red Hood helmet and putting on a normal one so he wouldn't alarm anyone as he blazed pass.

“I’ll be waiting Jaybird”

* * *

Tim slowly woke up after being under for such a long time. His arms felt like they were weighted down with lead not even Superman could lift his legs weighed the same as he could just barely move them. Weakly he turned his head as his eyes tiredly looked at his surroundings He took note of the golden bars that surrounded him. How they stretched up high above him and came together at a point on top of his cage. He also noted the ones that wrapped around them and the door that was just enough off of the ground that he would have to climb up in order to reach it. He found a mirror with a bell positioned above it ever so carefully and a wooden perch that swung freely in the middle of his cage.

Slowly he sat up once he could no longer feel the lead on top of him holding him down. He somehow felt lighter than he has been after all those years of swing from roof to roof. Something inside him was light, was different than how it was throughout those years of being with them. 

A shudder courses through his veins as he things of what that could mean. Of what they had done to him. A question quickly answered as a feather, black with a white tip, floated forward and landed carefully on his lap. It was when he was trying to find the source of the feather that he saw them. Two medium sized wings sticking out of the back of his shadow like they belonged there. Like they always belonged there. 

He was sure that in the exact moment that if he had been anyone else in this situation besides one of the Robins of Batman he would have screamed. He would have screamed so loud and long he probably would have passed out again as his wings seemed to match his emotions by fluffing out just to appear even bigger on the shadow. 

Ignoring the pain in his legs the moment he stood he rushed up to where the mirror and stared helplessly at it while trying to figure everything out. There he got a better look at them and saw their color and shape. A grey undercoating with black tips and when he turns around to look at a white strip perfectly going across the middle when he brought one forward to look at the top. Just like the wings of a Scarlet Robin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please R&R
> 
> Comment what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Please R&R  
Feel free to comment your thoughts they really help inspire me


End file.
